Mumbai, Aug 25 (Mid-day): In the absence of Bollywood’s biggest villain, the Bandra police had to deal with the man, who used to make nearly a hundred calls a day to Ajit’s son Shehzad Khan and daughter-in-law Shabnam to demand money for repairing a sofa in their house

If this were a movie, Hamid Ali Khan aka Ajit aka Loin (lion) would have probably asked Mona darling to get him his gun to take care of a man who dared to mess with his cub.

In real life, and in the absence of Bollywood’s biggest villain, however, it was left to the Bandra police to deal with the carpenter, who allegedly made nearly 100 threatening calls a day to Ajit’s son, Shehzad Khan (48) — best known for his role as Bhalla in Andaz Apna Apna — and his wife, Shabnam, beginning August 10. Ten days and nearly a thousand calls later, the carpenter was finally arrested on August 20.
Beginnings

Early in August, Imtiaz Ansari (35) was working as a carpenter at the house of one of the Khans’ neighbours in Monalisa building in Bandra’s Mount Mary’s area, and Shabnam hired him to repair a sofa in their living room. According to Shehzad’s complaint with the Bandra police, no amount had been decided beforehand.

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After working for a week, Ansari asked them for Rs 2,500, which he was given. Over the course of the next two days, he asked for more money — R1,000 at a time — claiming that he needed to buy material for the repair. By August 10, he had taken Rs 7,500 in all from the couple. Sensing that they were being duped, the Khans asked Ansari to discontinue work on the sofa and said they would get it repaired by someone else.

Calls begin

An outraged Ansari then allegedly began to make as many as 100 threatening calls a day to Shehzad and Shabnam, going as far as threatening to kill them if he was not given more money, which he claimed he was owed. He gave them an account number and asked them to deposit the money there.

Fed up, Shehzad approached the Bandra police station on August 12 and filed a complaint, but the calls did not cease. “The accused would harass Shehzad and his wife and had even threatened them to kill them. Ansari would ask them to put the money in his account and claimed he would take revenge if this was not done,” said an official from the Bandra police, who then began tracing the calls.

Bravado

The officer added, “Ansari called from different PCO’s, making it difficult to track his movements. But all the calls were made from the Kurla Kamani area. Even we tried to convince him on the phone to stop harassing the family, but he dared us to arrest him.”
In a bid to settle the dispute, Shehzad deposited R1,000 in Ansari’s account on August 17, but the calls still continued. The police then visited the bank in which Ansari had asked for the money to be deposited. They traced Ansari’s address with the help of bank officials and arrested him on August 20.

Repentance

After the arrest, Ansari changed his tune and told the police he felt sorry for the act. He said he had made all the calls in a fit of anger. He was booked under Sections 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (2) (Criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. He was produced in Bandra court and released on bail.

When mid-day contacted Shehzad, he refused to comment and said all the details were available with the police station. Deputy Commissioner of police (Zone IZ) Satyanarayan Chaudhary said, “We deployed two teams and arrested the accused. We are taking adequate preventive action to ensure that the family is not harassed further.”